


Things Change

by thelesterfam (phananddragonsfics)



Series: It Happens [2]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, F/M, High School, M/M, sick!Dan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-12 05:26:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12952284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phananddragonsfics/pseuds/thelesterfam
Summary: Dan Howell is one of the best young actors in his town, with just having completed his biggest role to date, Benvolio in Shakespeare’s "Romeo and Juliet". When he starts preparing for an even bigger part in "A Midsummer Night’s Dream", he suddenly falls ill, costing him his audition. However, it’s not just your regular cold – it’s something a lot bigger…something that will change his life forever. / Prequel to “It Happens”.





	Things Change

**Author's Note:**

> this story does have mentions of sickness/vomiting, but it is never explicit or in detail.

**December**

Daniel James Howell has never gotten nervous when preparing for an audition. Never once in his life…until today.

Well, the actual audition itself isn’t for another three weeks, but Dan is already beginning to feel the pressure settle into his shoulders and chest as he frantically rushes around the house, doing his chores while simultaneously reciting the required lines he is meant to have memorized for his audition.

“’I am, my lord, as well derived as he, as well possessed; my love is more than his; my fortunes every way as fairly ranked, If not with-’ _for fuck’s sake, this is so fucking long_ ,” Dan says as he comes up the stairs from the basement with a basket full of laundry that needed to be sorted desperately.

“Language, Daniel,” his mum says passively as she walks into the kitchen, as if annoyed with him. Which, from Dan’s fifteen, almost sixteen years living with her, isn’t surprising.

But why would she be annoyed? Shouldn’t she be _proud_ that her son, her eldest, the apple of her eye, whatever-the-fuck, is auditioning for _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_? That he’s found something he’s passionate about, or _has been_ passionate about since he was a young child, when he was five and was a sheep in his first Nativity pageant?

Wouldn’t she be like “yes, son, I realize that you love this so deeply and are wanting to continue pursuing this” or “you did so well with your part of Benvolio a year ago, so surely you’re going to get a major part in this play, too, so you should get in all the practice you need” or something like that?

No, because that would make her a normal mum.   

Dan rolls his eyes as he turns away from the kitchen, going into the living room instead, setting the basket down on the floor. He clears his throat as he begins to pick up articles of clothing from the basket, folding them and sorting them as he does so, tossing them on the couch after. “‘Ay me! For naught that I could ever read, could ever hear by tale or history’-“

“Daniel, please keep your voice down,” his mother calls from the kitchen.

“-‘the course of true love never did run smooth; but either it was different in blood’-“

“Daniel, go read a book or something! I’ve had enough of that nonsense!”

Nonsense? This is what she considers _nonsense_? Shakespeare? William Shakespeare, the dude who invented, like, close to 2000 words that are used in the English dictionary? Shakespeare, the dude who wrote 37 plays and 100-something sonnets (or Francis Bacon, if the conspiracy theory that Dan was reading the other day is correct)? That’s _nonsense_ to her?

Uncultured. Pfft.

Dan huffs and sets down his school shirt that he was going to sort away due to it needing to be ironed. “Mum, my audition is soon, and I need to practice my lines,” he explains, now deciding that throwing his clothes instead of folding them feels a lot better. “I have to have, like, all of these memorized in three weeks. I need to practice.”

“Practice them in your room, Dear.”

“But you told me to do chores,” Dan reminds her, placing a hand on his hip, despite the fact that she can’t see him. “And for once, look at me: I’m finally doing them.”

His mum doesn’t answer.

“ _So_ , I’m multi-tasking. Aren’t you always telling me I need to be doing more with my life, despite the fact that I have been in multiple stage productions in the past few months, as well as having good grades _and_ …um…I don’t really know what else. But I have a life, despite the fact that you might think I don’t!”

“Get your chores done.”

Dan slumps his shoulders. He opens his mouth to continue speaking, but he is quickly interrupted.  

“And I don’t want to hear any more of that nonsense. Practice that in your room.”

“But-“

“Enough, Daniel.”

Dan sighs, frowning at the pile of laundry in front of him, completely losing all interest in sorting it…not like he was _that_ interested in it in the first place.

But still. He’s upset.

He’s allowed to be, isn’t he?

Instead of sticking it to the man by loudly practicing his lines loudly and obnoxiously like he wants to, he sighs and lowers his head, whispering them to himself instead.

He’s fine.

It happens…even though he doesn’t like it.

\--------------------------------

“Why are you making me do this?” Adrian asks, his eyes glued to the tele, his eyes looking as though they long to resume his _Mario Kart_ game that Dan made him pause.

“Because I need an outsider’s opinion,” Dan replies, standing in front of the tele so Adrian can’t see it and get distracted by it. He places his hands on his hips. “And you’re an outsider with no theatrical background-“

“Because I’m not a nerd.”

“-fucking shut up – and so you’re going to give me your opinion on how I sound. If I sound passionate or anything. Like…you know. You know what I’m trying to say.”

Adrian rolls his eyes and waves his hand in the air. “Go on, then. Let’s get this over with.”

“I’m glad you’re so excited for this,” Dan says jokingly.

Adrian scoffs. “The quicker you do this, the quicker I can get back to ignoring you.”

“Chill. Okay,” Dan says, clearing his throat. He keeps his hands on his hips and raises his head, as if he was speaking to another person. He speaks loudly and with more posh (not that he’s already posh, because _no_ he is _articulate)_ in his tone.

“‘I am, my lord, as well derived as he, as well possessed. My love is more than his. My fortunes every way as fairly ranked, if not with vantage as Demetrius'. And—which is more than all these boasts can be— I am beloved of beauteous Hermia.’”

“What the heck does that mean?” Adrian asks, looking bored out of his mind.

Dan slumps his shoulders, falling out of character. “Really?” he asks. “You interrupt me to ask what it means?”

Adrian shrugs his shoulders. “I got tired listening.”

Dan rolls his eyes. “I’m rich, I’m noble, and I deserve to marry Hermia.”

“Who is _Hermia_?”

Dan slumps even lower, his posture completely ruined. “The girl I’m in love with in the play.”

“But I thought you were gay.”

Dan rolls his eyes. “First of all, I’m bi. Second of all, Lysander is supposedly straight.”

Adrian acts as though he didn’t even hear him. “What is this?”

“ _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_.”

Adrian blinks. “Sounds boring.”

“You’re doing this just to get me to leave, aren’t you?”

“…maybe.”

“Well, I’m going to start again.” He clears his throat. “‘I am, my lord, as well derived as he, as well-“

“ _Mum, he’s annoying me again_!”

“ _No, I’m not_!”

\--------------------------------

“You’re going to do fine,” he has to keep telling himself.

“You’re going to do fine.”

“You’re going to do fine.”

\-------------------------------

“You’re going to be here over break?” Claire asks Dan confusedly, her light brown eyebrows furrowing together to further express her emotion.

They’re out of school on Christmas break, only around two days into their three weeks off, and hanging out over at Dan’s house since Dan felt he needed a little break from practicing for his audition.

Because, in all reality, if you spend all your time on break doing things that don’t involve sleeping in until noon and eating your body weight in crisps, were you ever really on break in the first place?

(Well, that’s Dan’s philosophy anyway).

And he hadn’t seen Claire since before exams. They go to different schools, and Claire ended up getting out on break a little earlier than Dan, so they didn’t really get to hang out a whole lot during these past two weeks or so.

Dan nods his head. They’re lounging in the living room of his house, surrounded by little Christmas knick-knacks, a porcelain Nativity set that Dan’s grandma gifted the family (despite the fact that Dan and his family aren’t religious; but it was still a nice thought, and she picked it out just for the family, so it’s sentimental), and the Christmas tree lit up in the corner of the room, visible through the window to the outside world.

Well, partially. Half of the lights on the bottom of the tree don’t work. The people outside don’t know that, though; they would imagine the tree is fully lit up, but it’s not.

“No family holiday?” Claire asks, brushing her hair off her shoulder. She’s wrapped up in a blanket that had been resting over the top of the couch, and she’s watching the Christmas films that are playing on the tele. Dan, on the other hand, is scrolling through his phone on Tumblr.

Dan shakes his head. “They’re wanting to do two next year. One summer and one Christmas. So they couldn’t do Christmas this year.”

Claire frowns. She doesn’t necessarily understand.

The two come from two completely different families: Claire comes from a wealthy family – one that can afford almost anything they want. They have two vacation houses, five cars (for three people, one of them being Claire, who can’t drive yet), all this really expensive shit that, when Dan comes over to her house, he’s afraid that just by looking at them, he’s going to shatter them.

Dan’s family is almost the complete opposite. Dan’s parents were young when they had him, still in university, not married, and only with a little bit of money in their bank accounts. They still don’t have the world’s best paying jobs in the world, but they get by.

And holidays are a special thing to the family – they always try, even though they might not get along for around 98 percent of the trip, to have at least one holiday a year. They had one over Dan and Adrian’s spring break already this year, but next year they’re striving for two holidays, meaning no Christmas holiday like they’re used to having.

Claire doesn’t understand it. Dan thinks she’ll never really understand it, no matter how much he wants her to.

She doesn’t really understand a lot about Dan.

Dan always thinks back to the time when he told her he was bisexual around a year ago.

_“Bisexual?” she asked, confused. They were on his bed late at night over the summer, shortly after they started dating. They were close together, not necessarily cuddling, but close to it._

_Dan had thought that, since they’re in a new relationship, it would be important for her to know this piece of information about him. He doesn’t really want to hide it from her – yeah, he says that and he’s hiding it from his parents, but Claire is hopefully more open-minded than them._

_Emphasis on the word “hopefully”._

_Dan nodded his head. “That’s what I am,” he says with a little awkward laugh, hoping to release some of the tension he might have just accidentally caused. “Um…yeah, so I like boys and girls. Um…don’t really have a preference, y’know? Just kinda…y-yeah.”_

_He waited for a response._

_Instead of saying something encouraging, or, hell, even asking him questions like “how did you find out” or “why are you telling me this” or other things, she just…hums._

_Just a hum._

_Dan blinked and looked over her face, trying to find any sort of legitimate reaction._

_There was nothing._

_“Um…what do you think?” Dan asked, not really sure what else to say. He cleared his throat awkwardly._

_She just hummed again, not looking at him in the eyes._

_“Claire?”_

_“It’s just…interesting,” she told him, narrowing her eyes a little bit, which Dan didn’t take as a good sign. “Um…yeah, uh…can we not talk about this right now? Um…I just…yeah.”_

_Dan’s eyes widened. He knew Claire could see it, see the shock on his face, the “holy fuck what in the world did I just do” face._

_He shook his head and then smiled a fake smile at her. “Um…y-yeah, yeah, no problem.”_

And they never talked about it again.

Sometimes Dan will make a passive comment, like “oh, that guy in that one film is really hot” or “that guy over there is really fit”, et cetera, and Claire would always look slightly uncomfortable after he would say it.

He gets it: she doesn’t understand it, and she’s probably not ready to fully understand it.

At least that’s what he keeps trying to tell himself.

Maybe one day.

Claire has just always been a bit close-minded; she’s used to things, she likes to keep things that way, and she’s not really open to change.

She doesn’t yet understand that not everything has to be just how she’s used to it being. So even hearing that in order to have two holidays next year Dan’s family is cutting their Christmas holiday this year, is probably confusing to her.

Dan clears his throat and shrugs his shoulders. “It’s fine, though,” he says. “Um…auditions for _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ are in January right after New Years’, so I’m going to be needing all the practice I can get, you know? Like…can’t really be doing that if I’m on holiday.”

“Another play?” Claire questions.

Oh, yeah.

Dan might’ve forgotten to tell her that he’s auditioning for another play.

Dan nods, setting his phone down in his lap. “Yeah, uh…the theater group I’m in is putting it on for the spring,” he says. “I’m auditioning…a-as Lysander.”

She’s still clearly confused. “You’re going to be in another play? Didn’t your last one just get done with?”

“Earlier this year,” Dan confirms.

 _Romeo and Juliet_ had just finished in June, right after Dan’s birthday, when they gave their final performance at a thespian festival in Reading. It was where Dan won a Shakespearean award for a “stellar performance of Benvolio” or something like that. It’s sitting in his bedroom currently – it’s a decent-sized trophy that definitely wasn’t fun to carry home with him from the festival, but it is definitely one of his proudest achievements. 

“And this one isn’t going to be as big as _Romeo and Juliet_. We’re not planning on performing it at any festivals or anything, so we’re going to be done with it in, like, April. Maybe May. I’m not sure,” Dan explains further.

Claire huffs and crosses her arms over her chest. “Are you going to be getting a smaller part, though? That way you aren’t at rehearsals all the time?” When Dan was playing Benvolio, he was at rehearsals nearly every day after school, running lines and memorizing long paragraphs of iambic pentameter until late at night.

And it definitely didn’t get any better once the performances started. Then, he would be at the theater right after school to do quick run-throughs, mic checks, costumes, make up, and then the performances themselves, and then cleaning up afterwards.

Then festivals started happening, and so he would be gone for weekends at a time, performing and doing workshops and all these other things in different places across Southern England. Claire definitely didn’t get to see Dan that often when that was happening. And he knows she got upset by that – she was meant to have this perfect, always-there-for-you kind of boyfriend, but Dan wasn’t always providing that due to his heavy involvement in drama.

But, then again, Dan didn’t necessarily have this perfect, always-encouraging-of-your-extracurricular-activities kind of girlfriend, so it wasn’t good that way, either.

They’re not perfect. Not in the slightest.

But it happens. They just have to live with it.

Dan shakes his head. “I’m auditioning as Lysander,” he repeats, pretty sure that Claire was only half-paying attention when he was telling her that. “He’s one of the main characters. My drama teacher at school told me to audition for him. Apparently I’m a good pick for the job.” He smiles proudly.

She huffs again, clearly not sharing in the same emotion. “Another big part?”

“Yeah,” Dan answers, still smiling and trying his hardest not to let it falter. “Um…I mean, I’d love to be able to have the part, you know? Expand my repertoire of major parts I’ve had. It’d be good for me, you know, considering…” he trails off, knowing Claire knows what he was going to say. He thinks she doesn’t like it when he mentions it out loud.

She shakes her head. “But I won’t get to see you.”

“I’ll probably be free most weekends after auditions,” Dan answers. “And, plus, I might not even get the Lysander part. I might just be, like, a villager or something.”

“But if your drama teacher says you’re good enough…”

“It’ll be fine,” Dan tells her. “Everything will be fine. We’ll find the time to be together, okay? There’s nothing to worry about.”

She looks down at her feet, not daring to look up at him.

“I’m sorry,” Dan apologizes, though he’s not entirely sure _why_ he’s apologizing. He reaches over and touches her arm briefly.

She shakes her head. “It’s fine.” She looks off to the side, grabbing her phone from the armrest. She turns it on, and there’s a text from her friend. She reads it briefly and then turns it away from her, putting it back down as she looks back at the tele without even a glance at Dan. “Friends are getting together tonight at the shopping center. Seven.”

That’s Claire-wording for “we’re going, we’re going to look happy, and no one can know that we just had a little bit of a fight”.

Dan sighs and looks over at the Christmas tree, the half in the window shining brightly, and the other half only visible to him dimmed and broken.

He can relate his relationship to it a lot right now.  

\-------------------------------

**January**

Sometimes Dan likes to visit his grandmother.

Actually, not sometimes. _All the time_.

She lives in this little house by herself around ten minutes away from Dan’s house. He visits her after school if Claire is busy or if he doesn’t have anything theater-related going on, but during Christmas break, he goes over nearly every single day.

Dan has always been close with her. He would go so far as to say that she is his best friend – he can tell her anything and he doesn’t have to worry about being judged or anything because she’s just very open-minded and is always there for Dan.

She knows more about Dan than Dan’s own parents – he literally spends most if not all his free time with her, telling her things that he would never dream of sharing with his parents.

“Oh, I forgot to show you: I made you some cookies,” she tells him once he’s settled down on her living room, the smell of a pine tree scented candle wafting from the mantle above the fireplace, her Christmas tree still lit up in the corner of the room, and the puzzle she has been working on for the past two weeks situated on the coffee table.

“I’m down for some sugar,” Dan says with a laugh as his grandma scurries into the kitchen quickly, coming back with a plate full of sugar cookies. She sets them down unceremoniously on top of her puzzle, and Dan’s heart warms when he sees them.

“Aw, Grandma!” he exclaims, lifting up the cookie to examine it more closely. 

“They’re bisexual pride cookies, Bear!” his grandma explains, gesturing to the pink, purple, and blue striped icing she put on top of the cookies. “I was going to give them to you for Christmas, but I figured you wouldn’t want to have them with your parents around.”

His grandma is one of the only people who knows about Dan’s sexuality. Claire obviously knows and his grandma knows, but that’s about it. His own _parents_ don’t know.

Dan has been trying to figure out how to tell them, but he’s not sure what their reaction is going to be.

Considering how harsh they get when Dan so much as talks about drama club, Lord only knows how harsh they will be when he tells them he’s not straight.

But at least his grandma (who is a traditional Christian woman, might Dan add) understands and is there to support him.

“Thank you so much,” Dan says, smiling widely at her.

 “I thought you would like them. And you seemed to be getting a little bit skinner lately, so I thought these would help,” she replies.

Dan had suddenly been losing a bit of weight recently, but he didn’t think it was anything noticeable; then again, his grandma notices everything about him, so it’s no surprise.

But Dan is just saying that it’s probably from him focusing on his audition a lot more than his health. And he’s been sleeping in a lot later, missing at least one meal a day than what he’s used to. But he’s on break – it’s normal.

She sits down on the armchair adjacent to the couch Dan is on, and she folds her hands in her lap right as Dan takes a bite of his cookie. “So, how has your audition practice been coming along?”

Dan lets out a long sigh and sets the cookie down on the armrest, knowing she wouldn’t care if crumbs got all over it (unlike Dan’s parents, but whatever, Dan’s not salty about that one time they made him do dishes when it was Adrian’s night to do them just because the biscuit Dan was eating got crumbs all over the chair).

“I mean, it’s going,” Dan responds. He sighs and shrugs his shoulders. “Finding time to try and memorize the lines is a bit of a challenge.”

“Aren’t you meant to have them memorized next week?” she asks.

Dan nods his head and runs a hand through his hair. “Parents don’t like me practicing around the house.”

“Why not? Shouldn’t they be encouraging it?”

“They should be, but they aren’t,” Dan replies, pulling his legs up with him onto the couch. He clears his throat, feeling his voice beginning to get froggy. “They, like, get annoyed because I’m being too loud with it.”

“Too loud?”

Dan nods his head. “And my drama instructor at school told me before winter break that I should be auditioning for Lysander, one of the main characters, so I have both a ton of lines to memorize _and_ I’m supposed to be playing this really dramatic, passionate guy. So, yeah, I’m going to be pretty loud.”

“But they don’t quite understand why you’re being so loud.”

“Exactly,” Dan says, huffing exasperatedly. “And, like, I just can’t talk to them about it because they wouldn’t understand. They would just tell me, like, ‘oh, just go off and do chores’ or ‘don’t you have revising you should be doing instead of that’ and stuff. I can’t deal.” He sighs. “They’re busy people, yeah, but…like…” He shrugs his shoulders.

“You want encouragement from them.”

Dan sighs. “I mean…who doesn’t want that from their parents?”

His grandma nods her head. “Very true,” she tells him. “But I’m sure you will do just fine, Dear. You’ve always been very good at your acting.”

Dan’s grandma is one of the only people he is close with who actually comes to his theater performances. Obviously his parents go, but they go the opening night, and nine times out of ten, Dan’s dad will fall asleep during it or will have to leave because of work. Claire goes to the first show as well, but leaves right after curtain call.

Dan’s grandma goes to multiple shows. She’s always there, towards the front of the audience, smiling and waving every time Dan was to come on stage, even though he can’t wave back.

She’ll record it on her camera (she’s way more tech-savvy than Dan’s parents will ever be, and Dan can say that he’s the one who taught her how to be that way, considering how much time he spends over at her house) and will gush about him for hours afterwards, telling him how wonderful he did.

It’s nice.

“Thank you,” he says.

She smiles. “Now, why don’t you get up and recite your audition for me? Get some practicing in while you’re here. Be as loud as you want!”

Dan chuckles and nods his head happily as he gets up from his seat to recite his lines for her.

He can always count on her to be there for him.

\-----------------------------------------

Recite, recite, recite.

That’s all Dan knows.

That’s all he can do.

All he can manage to do.

Through all the headaches, through all the missed meals, the only thing on his mind is _recite, recite, recite_.

\----------------------------------------

It happened two days before the audition.

That unsettling in his stomach, the pain in his head, and the constant feeling of being tired.

He didn’t know what it was – was he getting sick? It was around that time of the year when everyone and their mothers caught some kind of virus, but Dan was usually pretty good about not getting ill.  

But even then, this wasn’t like his normal colds. If he was to have something like the common cold, he’d have a sore throat, then he’d get stuffed up, and then he’d have a head cold.

This was different.

He had such an upset stomach and a complete loss of appetite, where he could only manage to drink a little bit of water. Even if he thought about food, which he normally did quite a lot, he would feel the need to throw up.

He was light-headed every time he went to stand up, his brain spinning for a few seconds before going back to normal somewhat. He would get dizzy easily, and he mostly found himself lying in bed just to keep his brain in check.

“You’re just getting nervous for your audition. Getting stage fright early. That’s all it is,” Dan’s mum tried to tell him when Dan brought up his concerns with how he was feeling. “Maybe you should go out with Claire or some of your other friends. It’ll make you feel better.”

Or she just kind of wanted him out of the house because he was just kind of moping around not feeling well.

He didn’t go out. Not just to defy the law and “stand up to the man”, but because he literally could not find the strength within himself to get out of bed.

But his mother’s explanation for what was wrong with him literally made no sense. He was getting _early stage fright_ , huh? When in the world has Dan ever gotten stage fright? Probably when he was five when he was forced to go on stage at his grandma’s church in the Nativity play where he was a sheep or something, but that was because he was _five_ and it was his first time _getting in front of a crowd_ to perform something.

And it was, like, ten years ago. Dan has been on stage so many times after that, and never once since that time when he was five had he ever gotten stage fright.

And, plus, the audition wasn’t even taking place on stage. There was no stage to be frightened of, for Christ’s sake.

And, yeah, he was getting a little nervous for the audition itself, with if he’s going to be able to remember all the required lines and say them in an adequate manner. In all reality, he knows he’s going to do fine, but sometimes the nerves before an audition get to him.

But never like this.

Never once has Dan gotten dizzy and lightheaded before an audition. Yeah, he’s gotten stomachaches before, but they usually go away. But this one has been prolonged for the past two days, consistent in how much it pains Dan.

And then…the morning of the audition happened.

The morning right before Dan was about to set on his way to the theater where the audition was being held, Dan found himself in front of the toilet throwing up whatever was in his system. He was there for a solid fifteen minutes, just feeling completely and utterly ill – more ill than he had ever felt in his entire life.

“Well,” his mum had said, standing in the doorway as Dan tried to clean himself up afterwards, “looks like you won’t be going to your audition today.”

That just seemed to make everything in the entire world crash and fall down upon him.

All that hard work, all that time he spent practicing, all the hyping up he did…just went down the drain, laughing and cackling at him as it did so.

“Can you audition tomorrow?” Claire had asked when she and Dan were talking over the phone that afternoon, since Claire couldn’t come over and see him because he was on bedrest.

Dan shook his head even though she couldn’t see him. “Today was the only day,” he replied.

“Oh,” she had said. That was it – that was all she had within her to respond to him.

“It sucks,” Dan told her, though he knew she wouldn’t understand. “I had been…like, working on it all winter break.”

“Yeah.”

“And just because I get sick literally _the day of my audition_ , I lose my chance. It sucks. All that time I spent-“

“Well, that means we can just hang out more before school starts,” Claire was quick to interrupt, not sounding at all sad or remorseful for Dan’s loss. She honestly sounded… _happy_.

Happy.

 _Happy_.

“You’ll have more time,” she continued. “You won’t have to…like, constantly have to be at the theater. You’ll have time to do other things.”

“I mean-“

“So it’ll be perfect! You just need to get better quick.”

Dan slumped his shoulders, thankful to God that she couldn’t see. He sighed and raked a hand through his hair and let out a long sigh.

“Y-yeah…get better quick.”

\-----------------------------------------

That night, as Dan stays up late, unable to fall asleep due to the pain in his head and the ache in his stomach, he wraps his arms around his legs and rests his forehead against his knees, his blankets cascaded around him, not enveloping him like they had been a mere hour ago.

He got too hot. Too hot and constricted under those damn blankets.

Confiscating.

Sweat clinging to his forehead and making his hair that he had straightened earlier in the day curly with little ringlets.

He shakes his head and lets out a deep sigh, his shoulders still feeling harsh tension. His bottom lip is raw from the number of times he had been biting it today, and he wishes that he could just magically fall asleep right now.

But he can’t.

He opens one eye and runs a hand through his hair.

He fights back tears as he whispers to himself.

“‘I am, my lord, as well derived as he, as well possessed. My love is more than his. My fortunes every way as fairly ranked…’”

\----------------------------------------

**February**

Things didn’t necessarily get better.

He continued to be sick on and off. One day he would be perfectly fine, the next day he would be constantly feeling like he might throw up. There was never really a long period of time in which Dan would feel like himself.

He wasn’t sure if it was just him being ill, or if it was also a mix of him not being able to audition for the play.

He figured it was probably both – obviously it was very hard on him, considering how much he worked on it. He had spent hours and hours holed up in his room or in front of his grandmother or forcing Adrian to listen to him recite his lines. He spent hours being hard on himself if he couldn’t remember a line, telling himself off for not having his lines fully memorized.

All of that time he spent, all of those hours, all of his energy just wasted, smashed into a billion pieces.

And now, he’s just sick most of the time.

Because of how ill he has been feeling recently, it’s hard for him to keep up with everything that he needs to – especially with school.

School used to come pretty easy to Dan. He didn’t have to study that hard for exams and would still be able to get at least a B, but most of the time an A. He turned in his homework most of the time, but sometimes he would forget and turn it in a day or two late when his procrastination got the best of him, but most students do that as well.

He was an average student – trying for good grades, occasionally forgetting to turn in assignments, getting detentions and referrals every now and again…it wasn’t like he was anything stellar, but he was a good student.

But this was a whole new level of bad.

He didn’t go to class that much at the beginning of the semester.

He’d be forced to go to school by his mother on his sick days, even when it was physically painful for Dan to get out of bed and to get ready, due to his stomachache and his head hurting and spinning.

Some days, before classes even started, before the bell would ring signaling students to go to their classrooms, Dan would be in the bathroom, throwing up, which then forced him to go home.

The semester had barely begun, and Dan had already used five of his ten absences, his grades were already lower than they definitely should be due to low participation, and he had a massive pile of homework that he needed to do but couldn’t find the energy to complete.

His parents got called in to speak with his headmaster.

“He says they’re worried because you haven’t been showing up to class. Is this true?” Dan’s mum asks.

She and Dan’s dad are standing in the doorway of his bedroom. Dan had gone home after getting sick again, and he was currently lounging on his bed in his pyjamas, lying on his left side because when he was younger, his grandma always told him that if he had a stomachache, lying on his left side would help. She never explained why, but Dan always found himself doing it whenever he had a stomachache.

“I’ve been sick,” Dan tells her honestly, clearing his throat afterwards.

“What do you mean? You were just sick in January!”

So _now_ she says that Dan was actually sick. It _definitely_ wasn’t just stage fright or nerves before. _Definitely_ not what Dan was trying to convince her it was last month.

“I’m still sick,” Dan explains. “I don’t know what it is, but most days I have a stomachache and I feel lightheaded.”

“Why haven’t you told us?”

Dan slumps his shoulders, but he doesn’t answer.

“I think it’s about time you went to see a doctor, then.”

\----------------------------

So, they went to a doctor.

Dan got his usual checkup done. He’d lost a bit of weight, definitely looked a bit skinnier, and he knew that he must also look pretty ill considering the nurse kept giving him sympathetic looks and would pat him on his arm almost affectionately.

Dan felt like complete and total crap, but even with going to the doctor to hopefully get some answers, they detected nothing.

“Nothing’s seriously wrong,” his doctor told him. “Just a normal cold, it seems.”

Dan bit his bottom lip to stop himself from saying things like “but it’s literally been going on for a month”, “there are some days where I literally can’t get out of bed”, and “I don’t think this is normal, and I think something is wrong with me”.

He knows both the doctor and his parents are going to pass it off like it’s nothing or that Dan is just being his over-dramatic self. “You’re fine,” they would say. “Nothing is seriously wrong! You’re just really ill. That’s all it is.”

They wouldn’t understand if Dan said he felt like something was truly wrong.

“Just a normal cold,” the doctor continues, scribbling down notes onto a sheet of paper attached to his clipboard. “Just perhaps has been going on longer than it normally does, yeah? It’s that time of year when crud is just everywhere. Have you been taking your multivitamins or anything?”

Dan wants to say “I can’t keep them down when I’m sick”, but he instead just shakes his head.

His doctor nods his head. “Well, get back on those, and I’ll prescribe some antibiotics to help you out, alright? I’ll get that sent over to your pharmacy as soon…”

Dan’s ears cloud up, and he stops listening, doing everything in within him to stop himself from getting up and leaving the room.

\----------------------------

He goes back to school.

Starts going every day again…despite how much he wants to just stay home.

But it’s fine.

Everything is fine.

Or, at least, that’s what everyone wants him to believe.

\---------------------------

“Dan?”

Claire’s arms are wrapped around him, holding him, her lips attached to his shoulder, his neck, his jawline…

But Dan isn’t paying attention. Dan is an entirely different world.

He blinks a few times. She’s still kissing him.

“What?” he asks, his voice breathy.

His whole body hurts. He tried to tell her that earlier, but she didn’t listen. She came over and attached herself to him, definitely wanting more than what Dan was going to give her.

“Come on,” she whispers. She kisses his chin, then his lips. “Loosen up a bit.”

She definitely wants that right now.

“I’m not…I’m not really in the mood right now,” he says to her, shaking his head.

She pulls away. “What?” she asks, looking down at him. She looks confused. Dan has never done this before – rejected her wishes. He’s always given her what she wanted. This was new to her.

But he just can’t do it right now. Not when he feels like this.

“I’m…I’m sorry,” Dan apologizes.

Her shoulder slump, definitely disappointed, though her words say the opposite. A lie.

“It’s okay,” she says. She kisses his forehead, brushing his hair out from his eyes. “Maybe another time.” She lets go of him and lays down beside him instead of on top of him like she had been, and she turns the other way, pulling the covers over her shoulders.

Dan stares at the ceiling for God-knows-how-many hours before falling into a dreamless sleep.

\---------------------------

**March**

He continues. School continues.

He feels better some days.

Some days he doesn’t.

But he finds solidarity in his grandma, who is always open to having him over. Sometimes Adrian comes, too, but sometimes he doesn’t.

His grandma lets him talk. Lets him say how he feels. Lets her know what’s going on.

She’ll let Dan talk about his frustrations. How he couldn’t audition, how he finds it hard to go back to school. How he feels like he can’t keep up.

She’ll sometimes tell him what she thinks, but other times she just holds him.

And most of the time, that’s all Dan needs.

\-----------------------------

“You didn’t tell me you weren’t at school,” Claire says over the phone to Dan, who is situated on the desk chair in his room, curled up into a little ball.

He sighs. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I got really sick this morning.”

“I thought you said you thought you were getting better?”

He slumps his shoulders and looks out the window right above his desk. The window is open just a crack, despite the fact that it’s still rather chilly outside, but the fresh air helps with his headache.

“I thought I was, yeah, but then I got sick this morning.” Dan knows he sounds quite irritated (because he kind of is, but don’t tell her that).

Dan had honestly been feeling quite a bit better since this month started – he definitely had a lot more energy than he did earlier this year, and he managed to go to school without constantly feeling like he was going to have to rush himself to the bathroom to throw up.

But this morning, he’d gotten really, really ill again, where he threw up before he could even do anything to start getting ready, so he stayed home. It wasn’t as bad as it had been back in January, but it was definitely not going to be easy for him if he went to school in this condition.

So, he stayed home. What was the big deal?

Well, to Claire, it’s a big deal because he didn’t tell her about it.

“But you didn’t tell me! I was waiting at the street corner for you for fifteen minutes.”

Dan sighs. It’s his and Claire’s “thing” to wait for each other at the street corner by Dan’s school so they could walk back to either his or her house after school. Apparently after waiting for five minutes wasn’t long enough for her to get the memo that, hey, Dan didn’t go to school today.

Because, yeah, he forgot to text her. It’s not really that important for her to know, right? It’s just a little piece of information that shouldn’t be that big of a deal, right? It’s just _walking home from school_ , not the end of the fucking world.

Whatever. They’re both just overly dramatic.

“I’m sorry,” Dan apologizes. “I’ll let you know next time.”

“Why don’t you just go to the doctor again?” Claire questions. “You’re sick all the time still – isn’t that concerning?”

Dan shrugs his shoulders. “I mean, I was getting better.”

“ _Was_.”

He doesn’t know how to tell her that his parents and doctor think he’s doing fine and that he’s just having an abnormally long cold, or this cold that’s constantly on-and-off.  She won’t understand it. She won’t understand when Dan says he can’t bring up his concerns with them because he’s bound to get rejected.

“It’s fine, Claire. I promise.” He clears his throat, and despite how much he doesn’t want to do this, he can’t stop himself before he says it. “Why don’t you come over? I’m feeling a bit better than I was this morning, so…”

He really wants to be alone right now, but he knows this was probably what Claire wanted from him in the first place when she called. So, he might as well…

Claire sighs. “I’ll be over in ten.”

\---------------------------

He lets his frustrations out by playing piano.

He’s not good – he two months’ worth of practices when he was twelve, but he quit because his instructor was a bit…well, _crazy_.

And all he had to work with was a crappy keyboard that didn’t have a sustain pedal and that had the worst speakers on the face of the planet.

But it was his.

And anytime he felt frustrated – at himself, at Claire, at his family, at whatever, he’d sit down and play.

Just play.

Just play.

\-----------------------------

He hates this.

He hates this.

He hates this.

\-----------------------------

Dan’s mum finally decided to call the doctor to double-check on everything.

“He’s still sick, feeling the same as before,” his mum explained, seeming annoyed. Maybe it was because Dan finally pestered her enough and dropped enough hints to let her know that, yes, he felt extremely ill and needed medical attention _stat_.

Well, not stat, because he could wait and there were people probably with bigger issues than him, but still.

“And we were wondering if there was something that could be done about that, whether getting him in for another exam or if something…you know?”

“We’ll prescribe him new medication,” was all the doctor said. “Sometimes medication doesn’t work. We’ll get him a new one sent to the pharmacy for him to start taking as soon as possible. If it persists, call us again, and we’ll meet and talk.”

When Dan’s mum told him this, Dan wanted to call back the doctor and yell and scream about how _no_ , just giving him new medication probably wasn’t going to do anything.

But, he didn’t. He held back.

He didn’t fight.

Instead, he went to the pharmacy by himself to pick up the medication.

\---------------------------

The medications don’t do anything.

They just make Dan feel uneasy. Make him tired. They don’t get down on the first try most of the time.

But he tries.

He tries.

\---------------------------

“Mum says, and I quote, ‘get out of bed. You can’t just lie there all spring break’,” Adrian tells Dan from where he’s standing in Dan’s doorway.

Dan groans and buries his head in his pillow, his blanket covering the top of his head.

He’s having a bad day. A bad health day.

He’s actually just been having a bad health _week_ , but let’s ignore that for now.

It’s like this sickness or whatever-the-hell is plaguing Dan is just coming back in waves. He would be perfectly fine, and then all of a sudden, without any warning and without Dan even stopping to fully realize it was happening, he would be sick again.

And right now, he’s sick again.

Obviously.

It’s like his own body is trying to kill him – attacking him relentlessly, not wanting to let go until Dan succumbs and ends up lying in his bed all day.

And sure, he used to love just being in bed for long hours at a time, but this – this is different. This is _painful_. The worst sickness Dan has ever felt in his entire life.

“I’m dead; leave me alone,” Dan mumbles, closing his eyes tightly as a wave of nausea runs through his system. He clutches his stomach underneath the comforter.

“Mum wants you out of bed. She says you should be feeling better.”

“Well, I’m not.”

“She wants you up.”

“She’s bribing you to do this, isn’t she?”

“I get five pounds if I get you up.”

Dan rolls his eyes.

“I’m dead.”

“Do you want me to tell her that?” Adrian questions.

Dan nods his head.

Adrian steps out of the room for two minutes before returning.

“She says too bad and that you have to get up.”

“What does she want me to do?” Dan asks, turning his head slightly to look at his younger brother. “What does she want me to do so badly that I get out of bed?”

Adrian shrugs his shoulders. “She just doesn’t want you to be lazy.”

Dan rolls his eyes and smashes his face into the pillow again. “Well, she can fuck off.”

“Want me to tell her that?”

“Please don’t.”

Adrian nods his head. “Well, I’ll leave it to her to deal with you. I have to head out.” He starts to leave the doorway, preparing to go back downstairs.

Dan furrows his eyebrows and looks up at him again, interrupting him. “Where are _you_ going?”

Adrian steps back into the doorway. “It’s my friend’s birthday party. Well, his birthday isn’t until tomorrow, but you know what I mean.”

_Birthday._

_Birthday._

_Birthday_.

Dan’s eyes widen as he somehow finds the strength to sit up in his spot. “What’s the date today?” he asks quietly.

“The 22nd. Why?”

Dan mentally kicks himself in the shins as he climbs out of bed, trying his hardest to get his limbs untangled from his comforter. “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit…” he mutters to himself as he runs a hand through his hair, fights back the feeling of nausea, and pushes past Adrian to get out of his room.

“ _Mum, do I get my five pounds or not_?” Adrian calls after him down to his mum, who doesn’t respond.

Dan shakes his head rapidly as he runs down the stairs, heading for his phone, which he had neglected on the dining table that night when he really just wanted to go lie down somewhere. The battery is probably really low, but he doesn’t care at this point in time.

He turns it on, only seeing notifications from his Tumblr. He shakes his head and unlocks it, going to his contacts and spotting Claire’s name.

It’s her birthday today, and he completely forgot.

His mind sinks into a deep end as he dials her number, anxiously patting his leg as he listens to the rings. He still feels completely ill, but the adrenaline rush has made the stomachache a lot more bearable.

He leans against the table as the rings continue and continue, and Dan’s heart sinks to the floor.

“ _Your call has been forwarded to an automated voice-“_

Dan sighs and ends the call. Either she’s busy with family or she’s giving him the silent treatment. Dan definitely wouldn’t blame her for the latter.

However, despite still feeling ill, he changes out of his pyjamas, grabs his keys and his wallet, and heads out of the house without even saying anything to his mum, and he rushes over to a nearby shop and picks up a bouquet of flowers that he thinks Claire would like, adding a note that says “Happy Birthday <3 – Dan”.

He basically runs to her house, which is only a few streets away from Dan’s, and he knocks at the door four times, stepping back to wait for any kind of response.

Her parents aren’t home – the cars they use aren’t in the driveway like they normally are if they’re home. But Claire should be home – it’s break, after all.

When he doesn’t get a response, he knocks again, then rings the doorbell a few times.

Once again, he gets nothing in response.

His shoulders drop and the nausea returns in his stomach. He sighs and looks down at the ground.

He sighs and decides that he’s too ill to be waiting for her if she were to come home, or perhaps she’s just being stubborn for him forgetting earlier in the day, so it would just be better for him to leave.

So, he drops the bouquet on the welcome mat and then walks away, heading back to his house to sleep the day away.

\-------------------------

He sees her on a friend’s Snapchat later.

She was with friends.

He doesn’t blame her.

But he doesn’t ever get a response from her. Things just go back to normal.

Perhaps he just spent way too much money on flowers for nothing.

But it’s fine.

It happens.

\---------------------------

**April**

He decided to go to the play.

The play that he would’ve been a part of had this situation not fallen upon his shoulders.

He went by himself to a matinee on a Sunday when he was feeling a little bit better, thinking that he was going to be able to make it through the show.

He’d been good about taking his medications, he’d been resting, he’d been staying hydrated, he’s been doing everything in his willpower to try and stay healthy.

He still felt sick sometimes, but it wasn’t enough to keep him in bed all the time. He could go to school, but that was about it – he went home or to his grandma’s house straight afterwards and rested to try and help his body get rid of any ill feelings that might have sprung up during the day.

Perhaps that seeing this would make him feel better.

Or maybe it would just continue to make him feel upset and disappointed in his health for not being…well, _well_ enough for him to be able to audition.

He bites his bottom lip as he purchases his ticket and walks to his seat towards the back, keeping his head low just in case he sees anyone he knows.

He wasn’t really in the mood for socializing.

And he had told Claire that he was studying today so they couldn’t hang out, but obviously that was a total lie, and Dan isn’t sure if any of her friends are here or not. He’s not sure if any of them are into Shakespeare, but he can bet that a majority of them probably aren’t.

Dan’s just kind of an outsider with this kind of thing.

Whatever.

He sinks into his seat towards the back of the auditorium and flips through the program, skimming over the notes, looking over the cast list.

One of his good theater friends had gotten the Lysander part. Dan’s good friend Dylan. He was really good – he was in _Romeo and Juliet_ with him as Mercutio. Really good actor. He deserved that part. And he deserves this part, too.

Dan feels a little bit of hurt in his chest, thinking about what it would be like to have this part. He wanted it so badly and worked so hard for it…

But it’s fine. Things like this happen all the time. He just has to get better so that he can be in the next play. He’ll be in the summer one-act, perhaps, unless that interferes with his family’s holiday. And there’s the next big play. He’s heard talk that it’s going to be another Shakespeare one, but he’s not sure.

It’s all going to be fine.

He continues to sit and sit, playing on his phone when he needed something to do with his hands, and trying not to dwell on the fact that he was already beginning to feel anxious that someone might see him.

But it’s fine. The lights are already pretty dim, Dan has the hood of his black sweatshirt pulled up over his head, and he’s in the back. No one can see him. No one notices he’s there. No one would really give a damn. Everything is going to be fine, everything is going to be amazing.

…

Until he has to dart to the bathroom as soon as the lights turned fully off because he needed to throw up.

\----------------------------

Remember how he was saying things were getting a little bit better?

Well…he spoke too soon.

Things just seemed to get worse.

So, so, so, _so_ much worse.

He hates this.

\-----------------------------

“You have bruises all over your arms, Dear; are you okay?” his grandma asks him one day.

She’s over with him, sitting with him so that he isn’t alone. He’s gone from school again. One of his friends is bringing over his homework later this evening.

He’s gone past his ten absences, but it’s not like the school really cares at this point. They’re aware of Dan’s prolonged illness. They give him full credit for participation out of pity. Probably so he doesn’t have to repeat this grade.

He glances down at his arms. On many spots, there are fresh bruises – deep purple with hints of red. Others have gone slightly yellow around the edge.

He hasn’t left his bed in two days. How the hell could he have gotten them?

He lies.

“I’m fine,” Dan says, his voice monotone. The bags under his eyes are weighing him down. “I’m just clumsy.”

His grandma definitely doesn’t believe him.

“Daniel, you know it’s wrong to lie to an elderly woman,” she tells him. She uses the “elderly woman” card a lot. It’s her little joke.

Dan doesn’t laugh. Usually he does.

“I don’t know,” he says, shrugging his shoulders.

“You haven’t gotten out of bed recently.”

“Maybe I’m a sleepwalker and didn’t know it,” he says sarcastically.

His grandma looks him up and down. “Daniel.” He can’t really tell what kind of tone she’s using.

“It’s fine. I’m completely fine. Nothing in the world is wrong with me,” Dan tells her, sitting back against his pillow, as his head had begun to spin from sitting up too much.

She narrows her eyes.

“I promise, Grandma.”

She sighs. “Or are you just saying that because that’s what everyone else has been telling you?”

Goddamn it; she knows him too well.

“Maybe.”

She gives him that is like “my goodness, Daniel, you can’t do this”.

“I’m sorry.”

She furrows her eyebrows. “Why are you apologizing? You should be getting up, getting some help. Don’t apologize. Fix yourself, Dan.”

Dan blinks at her a few times, unsure of what to say.

He wants to get help – he hates feeling this miserable, this lowly, this _vulnerable_ …he wants to go back to normal. He needs to get help from someone.

He doesn’t know what this is – whether it’s just all in his head, he is legitimately sick, or something else, whatever it may be – but he just wants to get better.

Dan sniffles. He’d started crying, but he never knew when. And he didn’t tell when his grandma had stood up and wrapped her arms around him, holding him to her chest, his head rested on her shoulder.

“I just want to get better, Grandma,” he whispers. “I just want to get better.”

\---------------------------

**May**

He goes to the doctor a few days later.

The doctor is (finally) concerned about what has been going on with Dan.

Dan’s not sure if it’s because of the amount of weight he lost, if it’s the bruising, the sickness itself, or just how fucking _miserable_ he looked, but he was finally concerned.

Finally.

“You’re definitely still sick,” he says, tapping a pen on the top of his clipboard, “and you’ve now got some swollen lymph nodes in your neck, some bruising on your arms…”

As if Dan didn’t know about all that already.

But he doesn’t say anything. He can’t. Not when he’s finally going to be figuring out what’s wrong with him.

“We’re going to do a blood test,” he finally says after a few moments of silence.

He doesn’t explain why.

But at least he’s finally getting it.

…even if it means Dan has to deal with a needle.

(He doesn’t like needles).

\--------------------------

They do the blood test a week later.

Dan might have yelled profanities when the nurse stuck the needle in his arm, but it’s fine. It’s all fine. It happens.

\--------------------------

Never mind – it’s not all fine.

“We’re concerned,” the doctor says when calling Dan’s dad a week later after the blood test results came in.

“We’re going to refer him to a specialist.”

His dad knew what kind of specialist, but he never told Dan explicitly. He never brought it up. He just said “oh, you’re being referred to a specialist”. Not what kind of specialist – just _a_ specialist. No descriptions, no nothing.

But Dan found out when they went to the office a few days after the doctor called.

He was a blood cancer specialist.

Whatever the hell that meant.

Dan tried not to think about it. It would only make him feel far sicker than he already did.

\----------------------------

“We’re going to do a bone marrow test.”

They didn’t explain why.

They just did.

But they did it at the end of that week. Dan’s mum took off from work to be with him. His grandma was there, too.

They laid him on his side in a hospital gown, an anesthetic to his hip.

And within ten minutes after making an incursion, he was done.

“We’ll see you in around one week after results come in.”

\---------------------------

His grandma visited a lot during the week they were waiting.

“I brought you cookies,” she would say at the beginning of every visit. She always brought cookies. Dan wouldn’t eat them – he smiled and said “thank you” before going back to lying in a cloud of questions and a cloud of an unknown feeling – almost a numbness.

Claire never visited.

She was always busy.

Dan didn’t blame her for lying.

\---------------------------

**June**

“We need to do another test. A spinal tap.”

So they did.

They didn’t question.

They just did it.

It was another trip to the hospital, another day of Dan’s life gone, and another thing he’s more confused about.

No one has really explained much to him – he just goes along with whatever it is that people tell him to do. Like he’s just someone being poked and prodded at.

He just does it. He doesn’t really care at this point.

So, they do the spinal tap.

He had to stay at the hospital for a few hours afterwards, and during that time they would be checking over the cerebral spinal fluid to see if there were any concerns with…whatever. Dan wasn’t sure.

They didn’t tell him anything.

“It looks like it’s fine, but we think we know what’s wrong,” the specialist tells them. “But just to be sure, we’re going to do an ultrasound.”

So, they did.

They put the goop on Dan’s stomach while he was lying down on the uncomfortable, itchy bed, and they examined his abdomen.

They looked around for around fifteen minutes in just complete silence before they took the transductor off Dan’s stomach.

“Alright…we’ll discuss this and get back to you tomorrow.”

Dan didn’t know what they meant by “we”, but he can tell you that he did not sleep at all that night, and not just because he was feeling more ill than he had ever felt in his entire life.

\---------------------------------------

“We think, from the information we have received from all our tests…we can properly diagnose you.”

The doctor looks down, as if nervous to share.

Dan taps his hand against his leg nervously – an old habit that he’s never been able to successfully break. A habit his mother always told him he needed to stop doing.

The doctor clears his throat.

“Dan…you have leukemia.”

A punch to the gut.

A punch.

To the fucking.

Gut.

\---------------------------

They told him and his family about it.

He has AML – Acute Myeloid Whatever-the-Fuck – which basically means he doesn’t have as many blood cells (especially white blood cells) because blasts (whatever the fuck those are) keep taking up all the room. Which just basically means he can’t fight off infections and a whole load of other science-y stuff that Dan didn’t understand.

But what he gathered was that his life has just basically changed forever.

It’s not fatal, it’s easily treatable, and they had caught it just in time before anything too terrible could happen to him.

Like that makes Dan feel a whole lot better about this whole fucking situation.

He has fucking _cancer_.

“He’ll start having chemotherapy rather soon. He’ll be starting his first cycle, which means chemotherapy will be happening probably around every week or so,” his specialist explains, looking at Dan’s parents as if Dan wasn’t even in the room.

“And where will that be taking place?” his dad asks, stone-faced as always. His mum looks like she’s on the verge of tears. Adrian is at home. His grandma is with him.

He really wishes she was here with him.

“We’re going to recommend that his chemotherapy treatment be taken care of up in Manchester.”

He went on a long spiel about how Manchester has better cancer research centers and whatever-the-fuck.

“But if he’s going to be having chemo every week, and Manchester is four hours away…”

The specialist just nodded his head.

And Dan wanted to just fucking die right then and there.

\-------------------------

They talked and talked and talked for hours.

Literal hours.

Just talk of treatment, what this means for Dan’s lifespan, what things can happen, how they’re going to do things.

Forms and pamphlets and sheets and flyers and packets and books full of just information that they were shoving into Dan’s brain.

He was going to start chemo soon.

He was going to get put on medication.

He’d have to change his diet.

They’re probably going to move to Manchester.

Everything was changing.

\--------------------------

They told Adrian and his grandma when they got home.

Grandma almost started crying. Adrian was confused.

Dan could agree wholeheartedly with both of those reactions.

His parents mentioned the summer holiday being cancelled, which was a disappointment for Adrian, but he clearly understood. He didn’t make a sarcastic comment like he normally would have. He just nodded his head.

Then they went into explaining to Grandma what AML consisted of.

Dan go up at that point, giving his grandma a hug before he left.

Adrian followed after him.

They played _Mario Kart_ together in the basement to get their minds off it.

\--------------------------

He didn’t know how to tell Claire. He really didn’t.

So, two days after he was out of the hospital, he just went over to her house, knocked on the door, and before he could even tell himself not to, he blurted it out.

“They told me the reason I’m getting sick so much is because I have cancer.”

He’s not very subtle with this kind of stuff.

Claire stared at him for a solid thirty seconds, standing there like a statue, after Dan told her.

Her voice was quiet when she spoke.

“Cancer?”

Dan shrugs his shoulders. “Yeah,” he says, his voice sounding almost like a squeak. Like he was going through puberty again. “Leukemia. AML, to be more specific, if that means anything to you.”

She didn’t laugh at his failed attempt at a joke. She just took a step back.

“Wow.”

Dan shrugs. “It explains…a lot.”

“I, uh…I don’t know…”

“And…um…it’ll all be fine, don’t worry. Um…very treatable…from…you know…what I could gather from meetings and shit. Loads of doctors and specialists throwing crap at me. Um…so, like, you know…that’s what’s been happening with my health lately.”

She’s still staring at him, almost as if she doesn’t believe him.

“Um…yeah, it seems really weird, I know, but…yeah, I have…cancer. AML. Whatever. Still sounds so weird to say. Um…chemo is starting soon, meds will be coming my way, but…yeah.”

He blinks and then shakes his head.

“But it’s fine. It happens, things change, but life goes on, you know?” He laughs awkwardly. “Um…but…yeah, uh…just wanted to, uh…share that, but didn’t really want to wait, you know? It’s kind of…um…important.”

He doesn’t know how to mention that they’re probably 88 percent certain they’re moving to Manchester.

He doesn’t know if now is the time to say it.

But of course he’s going to have to tell her eventually.

But he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know.

Everything is uncertain and cloudy and fuzzy and makes Dan want to rip his hair out and scream at the top of his lungs.

But he can’t.

She blinks. “Yeah…um…” She turns around, briefly looks inside, and then looks back at Dan. “Listen…can we talk more about this…um…later? I know this is rude and kind of messed up, but-“

“No, I-I understand. I didn’t…you know.”

“Yeah.”

Dan clears his throat before giving a curt nod, turning around on his heel, and walking away.

Never once did he think he would be rejected by his girlfriend two seconds after he tells her he has cancer.

Never once did he think he would have _cancer_.

But look at where he is now.

Things just never seem to work out in his favor, do they?

\-----------------------------

They talk over the phone that night.

She’s distant.

But Dan is, too.

Like there’s a wall between them.

A wall that has been building up for quite a while.

But neither mention it…despite how much Dan wants to.

\-----------------------------

“Everything is going to be just fine, Dear,” his grandma tells him, her hand wrapping itself around Dan’s.

They’re in Manchester a week later, and Dan is about to get his first treatment of chemotherapy.

Chemotherapy.

The thing that people with cancer get as treatment.

Dan has cancer.

Dan nods his head, not sure what else to do.

He hasn’t spoken all day – he didn’t speak when he got up to attempt to eat some toast, he didn’t speak when he was getting ready, he didn’t speak when his grandma arrived in the cab that would take them to the train station, he didn’t talk when they were on the train, and he hasn’t spoken unless asked something since they arrived at the hospital.

Dan always thought he would be visiting Manchester for other reasons in the future. Never once did he think it would be for proper cancer treatment.

“Tomorrow’s your birthday, isn’t it?” his grandma asks.

Dan nods. He’d almost forgotten. He’ll be sixteen. On his sixteenth birthday, he was going to go finally apply for his provisional license, since his parents hadn’t been able to take him earlier due to him being ill.

Well, he’s still ill. Just with a name now. 

Cancer.

Leukemia.

Whatever.

“We’ll have to celebrate then, won’t we?” his grandma questions, smiling at him.

It’s genuine.

Dan hasn’t gotten that recently.

“We’ll probably be going home this evening, so on the ride home, think about what you want to do, alright? We could go to the cinema if there’s a movie you want to see out, we could just sit in and bake, we could…”

\---------------------------

More needles. More and more needles.

They put it in to his arm and just made him sit.

Just sit and sit.

Waiting for it to finish.

Feeling so goddamn ill, like he just wanted to vomit.

Feeling so tired, so, so tired. And just so done.

His grandma continued to hold his hand, even though Dan didn’t really hold it in return.

\---------------------------

“We’re going to do another kind of therapy tomorrow. CNS therapy.”

Another punch to the gut.

\---------------------------

And on his sixteenth birthday, Dan was stuck in hospital, a needle in his back, wishing he could just curl up in a ball so tight that he would just evaporate from the universe. Where he doesn’t have to feel like this anymore.

His parents weren’t there.

His girlfriend wasn’t there.

His brother wasn’t there.

\---------------------------

They went home the next morning for Dan’s late birthday.

Dan doesn’t necessarily remember most of it – he just remembers hugs. Lots of hugs from his parents, which was odd. He didn’t get those that often – not since he was a child.

His mum got him that video game that she said she was never going to get him because it would keep him from his studies.

His dad kept saying he was proud, but he’d never said anything like that before in his life. And he gave Dan a book on his favorite musical. Dan didn’t know he knew what his favorite musical was.

Even his brother – his brother gave him a present.

Granted, it was a Poundland knock-off Nerf gun, but he gave it to him. And they played with it for a little bit.

And his grandma was there, and her present was a book of Muse piano sheet music (“I know you can’t read sheet music that well, but I thought you would like it” Spoiler: Dan does like it).

But then the talk of “we’re moving” happened over the dinner table.

Because they were going to move.

“We know it’s your birthday and this isn’t something you probably want to hear right now, but we’re going to have to move pretty quickly, so it’s better to discuss it sooner rather than later,” his dad said.

“We’ve been looking, and we think we found a house that would be best. It’s right near a school you’ll be attending, and it’s also rather close to the hospital,” his mum added. “We’re going to check it out next week at your next chemo appointment.”

“And there’s a high possibility that I’ll be moving up with you,” his grandma said. She and Dan’s parents had been talking about it since they found this whole thing out. “I’m an old woman – I need people to take care of me.”

Even though that normally would’ve just made Dan’s heart soar, he didn’t say anything and he stopped listening.

He couldn’t hear it anymore.

\------------------------------------

Claire came over that next week after his chemo and CNS therapy.

Dan was curled up in a ball on his bed, feeling ill from treatments but also from the train ride home. His bin is right below his head, staring at him mockingly, reminding him of this situation he was in.

He wanted to rest his head on something, something stable and comfortable, his pillow not providing that like it normally would have.

 Claire is there, her hand on his shoulder as she sits on the edge of the bed beside him.

She’s silent. She hasn’t spoken a lot since she arrived. Dan doesn’t blame her. He doesn’t blame her at all.

He didn’t want her to come over. He told her he was having chemo and CNS therapy these past two days.

But she came.

Dan’s mum didn’t know she was coming over, and she bombarded her at the door, making her put on ten thousand pounds of hand sanitizer before she even took off her shoes.

His mum is becoming a little bit of a germ freak.

Actually not a little bit – _a lot a bit._

Right as he thinks this, he has to duck his head into the bin and throw up.

Claire’s hand goes stiff, her eyes widening and face paling. She doesn’t say anything, though.

Dan coughs. “’m sorry.”

Claire shakes her head. “Don’t apologize. You can’t control it.”

He coughs.

They lie there for a few minutes. He doesn’t really know how long. But she just remains there, as still as stone.

He clears his throat and looks up at her. “Just…just don’t stay here. You don’t need to be here. Go.”

She doesn’t question it. Dan doesn’t blame her. He knows this is the place she least wants to be right now. He agrees with her.

She nods. “Um…yeah.”

She runs a hand through his hair before getting up, leaving the room before Dan closes his eyes, trying to sleep away the pain.

\------------------------------

He checks a friend’s Snapchat that night.

He sees her.

Sees her in the background of a video.

Dylan.

Claire.

Their arms around each other.

Dan doesn’t feel hurt. He doesn’t feel anything.

It’s like he knew all along.

So he sets his phone aside and sleeps.

Sleeps this whole situation away.

\--------------------------------

He thinks about calling her.

He thinks about it.

But he doesn’t do it.

\------------------------------

He gets texts and calls that following morning.

Some from friends, some from people he hadn’t talked to in a very long time, wishing Dan condolences for the situation he’s in.

Claire had told them last night.

Told them that Dan has cancer. And that he’s moving.

He doesn’t know how she knew, but she knew.

These people, whom Dan hasn’t spoken to in such a long time, wishing him pity, wishing him good health, wishing him good luck on his move to Manchester.

He shakes his head.

He knew this would happen.

He doesn’t respond.

He lets them be, but they all keep coming in.

They’re so fake – he can tell. They just felt like they had to bring it up. Just remind Dan of this whole thing.

He cries again.

\-------------------------------

More people find out.

Dan’s parents told their coworkers when they brought up that they’re moving to Manchester.

So many people know. So many. The entire town knows.

They all look at him differently.

“We’re sorry, Dan!”

“If you guys need anything, let us know!”

“We’re here for you!”

 _No, you’re not_ , Dan wants to scream.

 _No, you’re not_.

\------------------------------

Drugs laid out in front of him.

All of them supposedly meant to help.

He’s not entirely sure of it.

He’s not sure what they do, what they are, whatever.

His mum had put them in those weekly containers that he only sees elderly people have. Where she puts in his medication for each day in one slot.

He sighs and grabs a biscuit from the kitchen and prepares to take all of them.

It hurts.

Not the pills.

Just his head.

And the rest of his body.

And his mind.

\-----------------------------

**July**

His mum disinfects everything.

She spends her weekends drowning things in cleaner, washing all of Dan’s clothes twice before she even thinks about letting Dan hang them up in his closet.

“It’s for your own good, Dan. You can’t be getting into contact with germs.”

Anytime Dan leaves his bedroom, he has to wash his hands or smother them in hand sanitizer.

The food he eats is completely changed.

He was meant to change his diet, yes, but now he can’t have sugar. No sugar whatsoever. He can’t have a lot of carbs or starchy foods. The vegetables he eats has to be washed even more than they normally do, according to his mum, and it all is just disgusting and different and bland and Dan just wants to curl up into a ball and evaporate.

“We have to keep you healthy.”

She won’t let him leave the house that often, unless he has to go to chemo or visit the GP.

She used to want him out of the house all the time, not wanting to be bothered by him or whatever, but now, she won’t let him leave.

“It’s for your own good.”

\----------------------------------------

People bring over food.

Lots and lots of food that the family doesn’t even know what to do with.

Families that Dan’s parents don’t talk to just showing up at their doors with food wrapped in cling wrap (food that Dan’s mum won’t even let him eat), the people giving it to them always looking at Dan with sympathetic looks.

Even his headmaster, just showing up with a casserole one night, telling the family that he’s so sorry for what had happened.

It’s like the news just spread like wildfire.

Dan was sitting alone at the dining table, his mum washing the dishes three times over in the kitchen right beside him, cleaning plates as well as trays from the food people brought over.

“I don’t want anyone to know.”

She looks at him confusedly.

Dan shakes his head.

“When we go to Manchester…only the people that have to know will know.”

“Why?”

“Trust me, Mum. Just trust me. I don’t want anyone to know unless they have to. Doctors and school people can know. But no one else.”

So, she just nods her head and doesn’t question it.

Hopefully in time she’ll understand.

\------------------------------------------

“We’re moving.”

She nods her head.

“By the end of the month. Um…Manchester.”

“Your mum told me.”

Dan nods.

“Um…” He looks to the side.

She looks down. “I know what you’re thinking about. And I agree.”

Dan nods his head.

She looks at him through her eyelashes. She takes a few moments of silence.

“Um…Dylan and I-“

Dan nods. “I know. I’ve seen.”

She stares at him. Her hair is brushing in her face in the summer breeze. Normally he would reach over and tuck it behind her ear. But he doesn’t.

Dan nods again. “I, um…I…yeah. I hope you two are happy together.”

“I’m sorry, Dan.”

She’s not frowning. Dan didn’t expect her to. He doesn’t blame her.

Dan shakes his head. “Nothing to be sorry for. It happens.” He doesn’t blame her at all. He’s not going to tell her that, but he doesn’t blame her.

“I hope Manchester treats you well.”

Dan nods.

“Perhaps we’ll see each other around?” she asks. “In the future?”

Dan shrugs.

“Perhaps.”

She smiles.

Dan fakes one.

\----------------------------------

He cries a little that night.

He’s not sure what for – Claire, himself, or his situation.

He just cries.

\-------------------------------------

He gulps as he’s watching Adrian pack his things away.

In the quiet of the room, he whispers “I’m sorry”.

“Why are you sorry?” Adrian asks.

Dan shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Addy.”

He doesn’t know why he feels the need to say it, but perhaps Adrian got something out of it when he stops what he’s doing to walk over to him, pulling him into a hug.

Stray tears drip down Dan’s cheeks.

\------------------------------------

The bags and boxes are packed, the moving van is filled to the brim, and on this rainy July morning, Dan and his family say goodbye to the only house they’ve known. Dan’s grandma is there, too, but she’s not officially moving until next week.

She’ll be in a house right near Dan. She’ll be there whenever she can if Dan will be in chemo alone.

Dan feels bad for Adrian – he’s just a kid, having to completely rip himself from the life he’s known. From the friends he’s made.

He feels bad for his parents – they’ll have to find new jobs and start all over again.

Dan feels tension in his shoulders.

All this because of him.

He shakes his head as he leans his head against the window of the car as his mum starts it up.

In a matter of seconds, they’re pulling away from the house, heading to a brand-new life in a foreign city.

A brand new start.

\-------------------------------------

**August**

Treatments.

Treatments.

Treatments.

The word has lost all meaning to Dan.

\---------------------------------------

**September**

Things haven’t been easy.

Things have completely changed.

Dan, despite now being given treatments, has missed the entirety of the start of year twelve.

His dad isn’t always around – he’s buried himself in work, not coming home until the late hours of the night.

His mum is over-protective. So over-protective. Hovering. A helicopter.

Adrian is a little distant – he’s taken to going to constantly being at new friends’ houses or being over at their grandma’s house. He’s not around that much. Just adjusting to this new life. He and Dan talk sometimes. But not that much – just like before.

Dan is alone.

Claire hasn’t contacted him, and neither have his friends back in Wokingham. It’s like they’ve all forgotten about him. Not that he blames them.

He has no one – he’s completely alone.

He spends his time in his room or in hospital, just thinking. Just thinking about nothing in particular, but everything all at the same time.

He’s so tired.

So, so tired.

Things haven’t gotten much better. Not in the slightest.

It’s so hard.

He wants to say that these things happen.

But is it always this bad?

Will things always be this bad?

He shakes his head.

 _It happens_ , he thinks. _It happens. It happens, things change, but life goes on. It happens. It happens_.

\---------------------------------------

Dan goes to his bed.

He’s just gotten out of chemo. He feels sick and tired, but he was somewhat able to walk back to his room on his own, though his nurse is probably following closely behind him.

He’ll probably be going to the bathroom to throw up sometime soon, but he’s ignoring that for now.

His laptop is still open in where he had placed it before going to chemo, his new school email pulled up.

The school he hasn’t yet attended because he’s been here after getting really ill from the move.

 **Inbox (1)**.

Dan sees it.

 He clicks it.

 **To:** howelldanielj@mas.co.uk  
**From:** lesterphilipm@mas.co.uk  
**Cc/Bcc:**  
Date: 17 Sept 18:56  
Subject: Tutoring

Daniel-

Hi! My name is Phil Lester, and I was asked by the Student Success Center at school to be your tutor, in case you weren’t informed about that already. I was wondering if we could set up a time sometime soon, depending on your schedule of course, to meet up and start working together. Please let me know as soon as you can.

Thanks!

-Phil Lester


End file.
